In Ratzinger's old haunts in Bavaria, Germans cheer their countryman, though some question his positions

Eric Geiger, Chronicle Foreign Service

Published
4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Sisters Sr. Imelda, Sr. Anna Mirian and Sr. Reverend Mother Bernadet, from left, at the catholic seminar in Traunstein, southern Germany, on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 toast to each other as they celebrate the election of German Cardinal Ratzinger, a frequent guest at the seminar, as the new pontiff. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday evening in the first Roman Catholic conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson) less

Sisters Sr. Imelda, Sr. Anna Mirian and Sr. Reverend Mother Bernadet, from left, at the catholic seminar in Traunstein, southern Germany, on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 toast to each other as they celebrate the ... more

Photo: KERSTIN JOENSSON

Photo: KERSTIN JOENSSON

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Sisters Sr. Imelda, Sr. Anna Mirian and Sr. Reverend Mother Bernadet, from left, at the catholic seminar in Traunstein, southern Germany, on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 toast to each other as they celebrate the election of German Cardinal Ratzinger, a frequent guest at the seminar, as the new pontiff. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday evening in the first Roman Catholic conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson) less

Sisters Sr. Imelda, Sr. Anna Mirian and Sr. Reverend Mother Bernadet, from left, at the catholic seminar in Traunstein, southern Germany, on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 toast to each other as they celebrate the ... more

Photo: KERSTIN JOENSSON

In Ratzinger's old haunts in Bavaria, Germans cheer their countryman, though some question his positions

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2005-04-20 04:00:00 PDT Munich -- When 5-year-old Joseph Ratzinger watched Munich Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber step out of his limousine near his hometown, he told his father: "When I grow up, I want to be like that man."

"I guess my brother was impressed by the cardinal's clothing, including his wide hat," Georg Ratzinger, the new pope's older brother by three years, recalled on Bavarian state television. "But to be fair, a short time later, he watched the construction of a new bungalow and switched his choice of a future occupation to bricklayer."

Georg Ratzinger, a retired Roman Catholic priest who lives in the Bavarian city of Regensburg, has misgivings about his brother's new job.

"I am overjoyed but would have preferred if someone else had been chosen, " he said. "It is such a great burden, and my brother now won't have the chance to spend his remaining years in quiet retirement and write the book that he had planned."

Seminarians at St. Michael's seminary in Traunstein, where the future pope studied for the priesthood as a teenager in the 1940s, erupted in cheers at the news that he had become the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. The school's director was in tears.

"I'm completely overwhelmed. I can't fathom what happened," said Rev. Thomas Frauenlob. "He eats with us. I can't grasp it. I know he's going to do a really good job."

In the tiny Bavarian village of Marktl am Inn, where Ratzinger was born in 1927, a band and free beer greeted celebrants in the main square in the shadow of the house that was once the new pope's home.

Even though Ratzinger's father, a police officer, moved the family away from Marktl when he was only 2, and he has said that he has no memory of the place, he was made an honorary citizen in 1997. The font where he was baptized is displayed in the village museum.

"I didn't think Joseph was going to make it," Marktl's Mayor Hubert Gschwendtner told reporters. "It's totally wild. One of us being pope."

Gschwendtner hopes having a native son as pope will mean more investment in the town. "There will probably be a lot of pilgrims flocking to our village, and local tourism will hopefully get a tremendous boost," he said.

Many residents shared their mayor's jubilant mood. But some voiced skepticism, reflecting widespread opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's conservative views on church teachings.

"My happiness is considerably reduced by my disapproval of Ratzinger's position on birth control and women priests," a young Marktl man told a television reporter.

To be sure, opinion about Ratzinger remains deeply divided in Germany -- a sharp contrast to John Paul II, who was revered in his native Poland. A recent poll by Der Spiegel newsweekly said Germans opposed to Ratzinger becoming pope outnumbered supporters 36 percent to 29 percent, with 17 percent having no preference. The poll of 1,000 people, taken April 5-7, gave no margin of error.

Many criticize Ratzinger, when he was cardinal, for decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counseling pregnant teens on their options and blocking German Catholics from sharing communion with their Lutheran brethren at a joint gathering in 2003.

Catholics and Protestants each account for about 34 percent of the German population.

Ratzinger also clashed with prominent theologians at home, most notably the liberal Hans Kueng, who helped him get a teaching post at the University of Tuebingen in the 1960s. The cardinal later publicly criticized Kueng, whose license to teach theology was revoked by the Vatican in 1979.

He has also sparred openly in articles with fellow German Cardinal Walter Kasper, a moderate who has urged less-centralized church governance.

But Hans Widrich, a prominent Austrian theologian, said he believes Ratzinger will slowly move the church away from its doctrinal orthodoxy.

"His hard-line views were a disaster for the Catholic Church in Germany because it polarized people," he said. "But all his life, he has been taking orders -- first from his policeman father and then from successive popes. Now he is the one giving the orders, and I am convinced that a lot of people will be very much surprised at the new Ratzinger."